Another bank down...

Well, another construction loan option bites the dust.  I am reasonably confident at this point that I am not going to be able to get a construction loan, which is a bit of a bummer, since it means I am forced to get a personal unsecured loan for the septic and well, which has a much higher interest rate (8-10% instead of 4%).  I will probably get started on that tomorrow.  I am also getting another quote for the septic just to see if it comes in any lower. 

After talking to the bank, I didn't have much time to work, since I was on the phone with them until almost 6.  I did get up there during lunch though and fixed the whacked connection from yesterday. 


I started to put the 3" waste line together, but it was rapidly getting too cold, the cement was starting to gel, plus I am almost completely out.  The 3" joints take a lot of cement.


So I stopped at Home Depot.  They do carry narrower sinks, like this one.  I can get it in all white if I prefer.


So I have a really nice spare sink if anyone needs one.


As you might have guessed, I decided room on the toilet that I will use multiple times a day is more important than a nice spacious sink that I won't utilize the extra space that often.  It is supposed to be reasonably warm for the rest of the week, so hopefully I can get the rest of the waste lines done this week, since I really need to get crackin' if I want to move in this winter.  I am also going to start working on detailed plans for the water source lines so I don't end up waffling on it for a week like I have the vent and drain lines. 

Guess what I did today. Plumbing.

I went up during lunch and poked TD Bank.  Even if they turn me down for a construction loan, they do have personal loans that go large enough.  We shall see how that turns out. 

I also went up during lunch and tried to put a few pieces together.  The cement was really thick (it was in the low 20s last night up there) and it didn't hold well, I think it was still partially gelled.  The first fitting I cemented pushed itself off even after holding it for over a minute (it is supposed to set in under 30 seconds).  It made a mess.  I have pulled the cement inside for as much as that will help, and will try it again tomorrow.  I decided to not bother reusing the fitting, it is a real pain to clean everything off enough to reprime and reuse it, even if the fitting isn't damaged.


I also did the rough in for the bathroom after work.  Apparently my chop saw won't cut 3" pipe clean through, so I have to do most of it, turn it and then finish the cut.  I also got to thinking and I think I will vent the toilet separately, since I still have the one vent that is coming down from the wall.  This makes the plumbing a lot simpler and removes the crazy angles I will need.  They do make long sweep 90's that have an offshoot from them.  They are normally intended for clean out plugs, but I could put the vent on it without any trouble.


The tape measure doesn't lie, so technically this is enough space, but it really looked too close to the edge.  The toilet is 18" wide, so I only need 9" to the center of the flange.


I also briefly considered putting it on the other side of that joist.  This presents a problem with the sink though.  If I put it here, it will be nice and roomy to the sides of the porcelain goddess, but the edge of the tank will be under the sink.  My sink is a full 24" wide, and this would put the edge of the tank at 24-25".  Considering I only actually have about 44" (48" - 3.5" thick wall - 1/2" thick for paneling), that means there is a 4" overlap.  I will have to decide whether I want the space around the toilet, buy a new narrow sink (I think you can get them narrower than 24") or put the toilet on the other side and deal with being up against the wall.  Being up against the wall isn't a terrible thing, a lot of the bathrooms overseas were like that, and while not comfortable, they were fully usable.  I also intend to get an elongated bowl and raised toilet, which will help alleviate some of the cramping.


I had to stay late since I got pulled over and got back to work late, so that was about it.  I apparently forgot to put the registration stickers on my plates, so my plates said they expired back in March.  Oops.  Thankfully tomorrow it is supposed to start warming up again, the last couple of nights have been chilly, and my apartment is sitting at 56 at the moment, since I am too cheap to turn on the heat. 

More plumbing. Surprise surprise.

I went up after work today after trying to get to a bank to find out that the loan officer had already left for the day, and the first thing I did was start poking was the plow blade.  It really is in nice condition, and is a lot heavier built than I would have thought considering it is a lawn tractor implement.


The blade and the tabs are both in good shape.


The mechanisms aren't rusted.  The left arm allows the swinging of the blade, and the right one raises and lowers the blade.


It also came with the mounting brackets for the tractor.  There is just one problem.  I have no idea how to attach it...  Looks like I will be watching some Youtube later tonight.  I think the left side bolts into the frame of the tractor, but I am not sure.


I then decided to go work on some more plumbing.  It turns out my hacksaw which I have been using when modifying the already hung pipes had a quality Stanley blade in it. 


I laid out the plumbing for the toilet, since it will drive the rest of the sewage.  I am a 60 short, I need a 60 where I have the 22.5.  It is a lot of bends in a short area, I hope it won't be a flow issue.  Basically it goes flange, 45 to make it flow back towards the center, a double 60 to get it from above the metal trailer frame to below the metal trailer frame, a wye for the sink that will act as the wet vent, and then the wye for the shower/floor drain.  This oddness is largely because of the the triangular trailer frame oddness.  I will have to raise the toilet a couple inches off the floor to have enough room for the plumbing, but I needed to have the toilet on an independent platform anyway since the floor will not be level, it needs to be able to drain.  I can't wait until I get to that headache.


I also dry fitted the next chunk of the bathroom sink.


The biggest problem with dry fitting - it is difficult to get everything tight enough together to stay put.


I also put the next set of joints on the laundry room side.  Currently I am running a 60 here on the bottom, since the upper 90 is not perpendicular, but I might consider either adding a 22.5 and making it perpendicular.  I am trying to minimize the amount of fittings because each bend causes slow down in the water flow.  There shouldn't be much in the way of solids in the washing machine line, but it still isn't a good idea to impeded flow any more than you have to. 


I stopped at Home Depot on the way home as is becoming my habit, and looked at toilets.  The good news is that they are narrower than I thought, which is nice.  This one is the current front runner.


I also received the new light today.  It is very bright.  This was taken indoor with no other lights on and without the flash.  Not bad for a 20W light.


It is such a small thing.


My current outdoor lighting will now get demoted to being spot lighting, which is all I originally planned to use it for anyways.


No real movement on the loan front.  I didn't get to the bank early enough today to talk to anyone.  Tomorrow I will probably go up during lunch since I don't have as many meetings tomorrow.

Plow acquired, yet still more plumbing.

Today involved... more plumbing.  I got the two main verticals hung.  The laundry room side is up to the elbow that goes through the floor.

The bathroom side is roughly equivalent.  The trap isn't cemented in because I haven't installed the sink yet.  

I also fixed my error from yesterday and made another whoopsie.  That vertical pipe (the one on the bottom) was the pipe I got from Dad for carrying the roll of metal around, so it is aged, and well past its prime and probably should not have been used for new construction.  I grabbed it since it was outside with all my other pipe and looks exactly identical, same brand, same print on it and everything.  The good news is that it is in the dry vent portion of the line, so even if it cracks, it won't leak gray water, since this part of the pipe should never get wet.  If it does, the house is underwater.

I also had a spill of the PVC cement.  It got on the ladder, and unfortunately my tape measure was there.  It dissolved a little bit of the casing (the cement is pretty corrosive stuff, which is why it makes a good chemical weld) but everything seems to still work.  

I left a bit before dark to go look at a plow.  It should bolt right onto my tractor; it is a Craftsman blade for Craftsman tractors, but I am not sure that the front of my tractor can handle it.  It was all I could do to lift it, so it is quite heavy.  I will get better pictures tomorrow.  One nice thing about it is that it doesn't require you get off to change the plow angle.  If it mangles the front of my tractor, I will probably end up bringing it down and hooking it onto Dad's tractor and borrowing his 4 wheeler until next year and build a plow for that.  

The leaves are doing some weird things this year.  I got all the colors in one leaf.

It makes the tree look interesting.  

So I came to the realization today that I did pretty much everything in the wrong order.  I should have done the rough in sewage plumbing first, then the floors, and then the underbelly.  I realized today that I will have to cut chunks out of the flooring for the plumbing instead of just the holes where the pipes go through as you would in normal construction.  The venting should have been the last part that I did.  I can no longer do any plumbing from underneath though since the underbelly is already on. Fortunately everything is close enough to the edge that it won't really impact anything, but it is still a lesson learned.  

I also realized something else today, I don't have enough drop to bring the sewer line out right over top of the hole in the slab.  You need 1/4" per foot (or 1" every 4 feet) and the front is almost 18 feet from the septic line in the slab, but I don't have 4.5" of drop required to make the run that far, so I will have to drop it out from the house in front of the axles and run it outside across the axles to the drain in the slab.  I don't like that, but I don't really have a choice unless I want to remove all the cross members on the trailer frame and cut parts of my joists away, which I like even less.  Bummer.

More riveting plumbing

I helped Anx move this morning, and headed up in the afternoon to continue on the plumbing.  The first thing I did was hang the existing parts.  One of the straps needs to be tightened, but that is a minor thing. 


I got the bathroom side started, but made an oops.  I mis-measured the long pipe.  Doh! This is why you are supposed to dry fit check these things... 


I mostly worked on the laundry room side though.  The trap is in, all these were checked before they were cemented and are correct.  I just need to install it, which I didn't do because I was missing a couple of parts.


I didn't realize that the 45's I purchased were only flared on one side, so I needed to go pick up some couplers, and I ran out of pipe, all of which I picked up on the way home.  Tomorrow I should finish the laundry room side and hopefully the bathroom, which will be significantly more complex.  I am also going to look at and probably pick up a plow tomorrow for my tractor.  I will put it on mine and see how solid it is (I expect it will be cringeworthy) but I can also bring it down for Dad to use.

Another bank rejection.

The last couple of days I have been working with Bank of NH, and today they finally told me that the only thing they had was a home improvement loan, but that didn't go up to 30k.  So I am on the hunt for a bank again.  Monday I will check with NBT bank (they gave me the car loan for the Nissan) and TD Bank.  I might have to get an unsecured personal loan, but most of those don't go to 30k either, so we shall see.  Worst case, if I find one that goes up to 20-25k, I could put the well on my credit card and get the loan for just the septic.  That would pretty much max out my card, which I don't really want to do going into the holiday season, but if I must than I must.  In order to keep it under 20k, I would have to do the electric and the driveway and stuff myself too, which with only a maxed out credit card might be interesting.  Kind of annoying.

I did get a little progress done today after I went out and helped one of my coworkers move.  This picture looks like the one yesterday, with one important different, there is a little purple at the joints, because it is all cemented together now.


I picked up a couple of pieces that I had missed as well, so I now have a toilet flange and a drain for the bathroom.

Working on the venting.

I managed to get out early today.  I started by going to the bank.  Turns out Savings Bank of Walpole doesn't have anything for me either.  At least they came out and told me straight up though instead of sending me on a multi-day runaround. 

After that I went up and did some more work on the plumbing.  I have the bulk of the attic parts of the venting done. 


There is a couple of flaws with my working after dark plan.  It is too dark outside to use the saw, so I went home when it was too dark for my flashlight.  I do have another waterproof floodlight on order, but it hasn't gotten here yet.  The other major issue is that the rubber cement clearly says on the can that it only works down to 40F, and takes a couple of hours to cure.  I thought it worked at all temperatures, it just took a little longer to set up in the cold, but that isn't what the can says.  I might have to cut all the pieces and dry fit it and do all the final assembly during the weekend.

It is going to be a while before there is any movement on the checklist.

Underbelly done, place is lit.

I didn't get anything done yesterday since I didn't get out of work until it was almost sunset.  Today however, I got out almost on time, and managed to get a little bit of work done.  The first thing on the list for today: the pest block.  The area around the wheel wells and the front where the framing goes through the underbelly are all done. 


I also stopped by Tim's on the way home since he had some old flood lights.  They are incandescent and throw off a ton of heat, but it means I didn't have to buy any work lights.  It took a little while to get everything set up, but I now have a set of outlets out by the miter saw, and this power strip inside. 


They light the place up reasonably well.  This picture was taken without the flash after sunset.


I apparently didn't take a photo, but I also started grouping all the plumbing for the attic portion of the venting and got the AAV assembled.

The underbelly and rodent barrier is complete, so another item is off the checklist.

1. Square up the corners
2. Attach ceiling beams
3. Secure rafters and beams with hurricane ties
4. Attach the subflooring to the trailer frame.
5. Sheathe the roof
6. Install tar paper to make the roof watertight.
7. Install windows and AC.
8. Tyvek wrap.
9. Install roof.  Including the drip edge.
10. Install siding.
11. Install attic vent
12. Run the rough plumbing. (includes gas line for stove)
1. Venting and Drainage
2. Water supply
3. Gas lines
13. Run the rough electric.
14. Install rodent barrier/underbelly.
15. Finish the exterior.  Do Skirting.
16. Install insulation.
17. *Install flooring.  *16
18. Install light fixtures.
19. Install ceiling and attic insulation. *18
20. *Install paneling  *13, 16
21. *Complete electrical and plumbing.  *20
22. *Install final flooring (carpet/linoleum).  *17, 20
23. Install interior fixtures.  When I get here, I will likely create a new list for the interior work.

Underbelly almost done.

I went and visited Aunt, Uncle and Mike this weekend.  The drive was quite pretty.  Most of Vermont and the Molly Stark was in peak foliage.  Unfortunately this is probably all the leaf peeping that I will get to do though.




Not quite all of it was though.


I didn't get quite get back early enough to complete the underbelly.  I did get the taping done though.


I also got the wheel pieces cut and installed. 


The green can in that last picture is all that remains for the underbelly.  It is the spray in foam pestblock.  I intend to fill the hard to insulate areas with it.  That is all that remains on the underbelly.  The should be finished tomorrow.  As such no movement on the checklist.

Mother Nature insured the underbelly didn't get done.

So I actually got up early today and got going earlier than usual.  Unfortunately, the rain was supposed to wait until tonight, but that didn't happen.  I was dodging showers all morning.  I still managed to get all the seams taped except one small corner in the front and the front itself.  Despite the crappy picture, it is tape. 

I also went to Home Depot (both last night and this morning) and got all the plumbing materials.  The moving coupon they sent me saved me quite a bit of money, since I bought all the plumbing stuff on it, and all of it was 10% off.  One interesting note is that all the PVC fittings are from Nibco, which might sound familiar.  I have more pex than I need to do the water lines, but the only sizes were 10' or 100ft.  I decided to go with the rolls for all but the hot water main (3/4" red).  I will have a bunch leftover, but I needed enough to the point where the cost bump to 100' was minimal. 

That is a lot of stuff...

Since this is the end of my vacation time for the year (outside of a couple of already scheduled days around Thanksgiving and Christmas) I am headed out to visit Aunt and Uncle and Mike this weekend, so there won't be any updates until Sunday.  

Thanks to mother nature (I could easily have finished the underbelly today), no movement on the checklist.  I will hopefully finish it up on Sunday when I return.

Underbelly not quite done, lots of pictures.

I lost another couple of hours today going back and forth with the loan people just to find out that despite their assurances at the beginning of the process, they don't have a loan they can give me.  Great.  On to the next one. 

Today was a pretty good day, very windy though which was annoying.  Despite that, I got the rest of the underbelly hung.


I worked out a system to get everything over the pipes in the middle without having to crawl under the trailer.


So apparently 250 square feet wasn't enough...


The back does otherwise look pretty nice.  I was a bit more careful about hanging the back than I was in the front, so it is much better as far as tension goes.


I managed to cobble the corner together, though it looks terrible (what else is new).  As long as the adhesive works, it should be functional though.


This is what the corner looks like from the inside.


This is all that I have left.  Talk about cutting it close.


I will still have to figure something out for the wheel wells.  I will probably use plywood for it though.


I also went through and started gluing the centers of the pieces together.  I am running out of spray adhesive, so I have only been doing enough to hold them together.  I still plan to tape all the seams.  The tape better be as permanent as it claims. 


All in all, I think the way I originally wanted to do the underbelly would have been better, even if it did take more material.  I was originally intending to glue and tape each side before attaching it to the trailer.  Oh well, lesson learned for next time (if there is a next time).

A side note on the plumbing, I will have to find out how long the sweep is on a 3" long sweep elbow to make sure that the toilet can actually be mounted up against the wall.  I will look at the sweep tonight when I go to pick up the plumbing stuff.  I need to make sure I can get it inside the trailer frame rails.  From there I can do double 45's if necessary.


I also went and did the last mowing for the year, since it is as dry as it will get all year at this point, and unless we get another heat wave, the grass won't grow enough to warrant another mowing this year.  Even the back was only slightly damp.


I still managed to find this with the blades though.  That made a really awful screech as it stalled.  Thankfully it didn't wind into the blades, and was really easy to pull out.


Once I was done I poked around at my mower.  It turns out it does have the front mounting plates for accessories (a plow in my case).  It wouldn't be hard to build a simple wood plow for it. 


It wouldn't be hard to jerry-rig something to add some weight to the back either.  I know this is strong enough since I was using it to pull the building square when I was doing the siding. 


It would be a cruel thing to do to the tractor, it is really really really undersized for plowing (and the front end of the tractor is already bent, and the transmission already hates life, and the clutch is already shot, and I don't think it puts out the HP it once did), but I haven't been seeing anything with a plow on Craigslist.  I might wait a bit longer before I make a decision on anything though.

So apparently the USPS won't deliver to my door anymore.  They just saw that the AAV I ordered wouldn't fit in my box and said whatever. 


Something else interesting happened today.  I am not sure how it happened, but it appears that the door has fixed itself.  It is actually latched.  I had played with the sill plate a few days ago to no avail, but apparently something shifted when I jacked up the trailer to put the underbelly on and it is closing now.  Not sure if that is a good thing or not.  It does mean if I transport the thing the door will have to be checked, it isn't solidly in apparently.  Not sure I like that.


No movement on the checklist, I didn't get as far as I wanted to, but here are some nice fall pictures.  The leaves are changing with the return of the cooler weather.The colors aren't very vivid in the photo because the lighting was bad.  These are Otter Brook, taken from the bridge right across from the country store.